‘Born again in dogs’: How Clear the Shelters became a year-round mission for animal lovers

The Los Angeles Animal Services West Valley Shelter is full of dogs.

A trio of eight-week-old puppies share a cage in the entry hallway next to Olive, a 2-year-old mixed breed. Down the hall Nala, an 85 pound mixed breed, slumbers in a room originally designed for cats.

Ruby has the attitude of a seasoned shelter veteran. She meets your gaze as you approach her cage but does so laconically, as if suspecting that you are not here to take her home.

August is Clear the Shelters month, a campaign by NBC Universal Local to find homes for as many shelter animals as possible.

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For those who are a part of the shelter system beyond the month of August, their cause is an existential statement on society.  

“How do you expect a society or community or city or town to be peaceful when their animals, living creatures are not being treated right? They're not in loving homes they're being abandoned and ignored,” Robert Ferber said.

Ferber is a volunteer at the Los Angeles County Agoura Animal Care Center as well as second vice-president of Healthcare for Homeless Animals and a former full-time animal cruelty prosecutor for the City of Los Angeles.

“I think the toughest job in this office, in this shelter, without a doubt is the person that sits at the front counter and has to listen to stories about why people are bringing animals in,” Ferber said. “And most of the times it's not the animals fault.”

According to Shelter Animals Count, an organization that tracks the number of animals in shelters across the nation, over 2,000 shelters have taken in over 1.6 million animals from the start of the year through July. Of them, 783,614 were strays and 403,794 were relinquished by their owners.

The organization also reports that the shelters have completed over 880,000 adoptions and returned over 160,000 animals to their owners.

One of the owner-surrenders back at the West Valley Shelter is Fendi, a recent arrival whose auburn eyes scream hello when they meet yours. A single bark confirms the message.

'The first dog that you will find is a deserving dog and the next 1000 will be as well'

“We have not evolved sufficiently as a species to understand that these are, and I use the word deliberately, these are sacred beings, they really are,” Keith Olbermann said. “Maybe someday Man will understand that.”

The sports and political commentator, who describes himself as "born again in dogs," reserves a segment of his daily podcast “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” to highlight an animal in need.

“The sad part of it is you don't have to choose, you literally could go with the first one that you find,” Olbermann said. “The first dog that you will find, the first dog that will appear in my emails, the first dog I'll see mentioned online or on Twitter is a deserving dog and the next 1,000 will be as well.”

One of the avenues Olbermann finds animals to highlight are rescues like the American Maltese Association Rescue, whose National Coordinator for the East Coast, Susan Leavitt, he met while walking his dog Stevie in a pet shop in New York City.

“Very often shelters will adopt out the dogs that are very young, the dogs that are very healthy, the dogs that are very desirable. Where they need rescues to step up are the dogs that are seniors, the dogs that have medical issues,” Leavitt said. “[Shelters] don't tend to take care of a lot of the serious medical issues. Sometimes they're things like heart murmurs where the dog has to go to a cardiologist. So as rescues, we're the ones who take in these kinds of dogs, get them the special care they need.”  

Olbermann sees the passion in rescue volunteers that awoke in him when he first met Stevie in a pet shop on Lexington Avenue 11 years ago.

“The rescues are the people who are saying, 'I will grab, I will take this dog, I am overcapacity here. I will find some way to do it,'” Olbermann said.

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Human housing affects animal homes

While Leavitt noted that shelters and rescues are still seeing dogs that were adopted during the lockdowns resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, there is another force driving owner surrenders: housing insecurity.

“There are a lot of housing situations, whether rental houses or apartments, where they won't allow the big dogs. If they're looking for other housing, they might not be able to take that large dog with them,” Leavitt said.

Ferber has seen this in both his prosecutorial and volunteer work and believes that a solution for animals is similar to a solution for humans.

“A big thing now is low income, affordable housing. The government has just as much ability to tell developers 'You need to provide housing [that is] animal friendly,'” Ferber said. “If you're going to build a 500 unit building and 10% is affordable housing, 50% should be animal friendly, so that we can get animals into these places.”

Wherever an animal is adopted from, there is a joy that comes from finding them a forever home.

“When it comes time to jump in the car, there is definitely a tail up,” said Kelly Miller an Animal Control Officer at the Agoura Care Center. “We all do a high five, celebration type thing, if it’s one who's been here a bit longer, even more so.”

For those who are doing the adopting, Olbermann believes they have found more than just a furry companion.

“You can propose your own answers to: what are the meanings of life? I'm convinced that the one answer I would put money on is dogs,” Olbermann said.

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